


Making the Most of the Night

by yourcrookedheart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Sharing a Bed, minor Canada bashing, while on the run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 16:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12845298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourcrookedheart/pseuds/yourcrookedheart
Summary: Canada sucked, if you asked Sam. Which, so far, no one had.Luckily, Bucky's there to distract him.





	Making the Most of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> 2000 words of tropey, fairly self-indulgent Sam/Bucky fic. Takes place right after Civil War.
> 
> Yes, the title is based on a Carly Rae Jepsen song.

Canada was cold and drafty this time of year, and the gorgeous fall colors that flashed by in a haze of orange and red through the windows of the cramped Toyota got a little old after days on the road. They’d all dumped their phones somewhere in Vermont, after Natasha had disabled the signals, and now Sam had no way to reach the outside world. The places they were driving through gave a new definition to the phrase ‘middle of nowhere’. And worst of all, there was no Chick Fil-a.

So Canada sucked, if you asked Sam. Which, so far, no one had.

He leaned against the counter and the bored-looking receptionist glanced up from her magazine — 10 signs that tell you he’s cheating! — to frown at him. For a minute Sam worried he’d been recognized, but she didn’t seem to making any moves to call the cops. More likely Kashabowie didn’t get many black tourists.

“I need a room,” he said, smiling reassuringly. Friendly tourist here, just passing through. Not a fugitive from the law at all, no sir.

“One room?” 

“Four rooms,” he amended. He hoped Steve had brought enough cash to pay for their expenses, because Sam had realized earlier today when he’d tried to buy a few cans of coke at a petrol station that all of his cards had been blocked.

The receptionist typed in a few words on the ancient computer, then said, apathetically, “We only have three rooms.”

“Then we’ll take the three rooms,” Sam replied, keeping his impatience at bay, and the receptionist shrugged before handing him a form. He filled it in as truthfully as he could under the circumstances, which meant the only answer that wasn’t a lie was that he was from America, and that only because his British accent sucked. She gave him the keys, barely taking the effort to read the completed form, and pointed him in the direction of the rooms.

“Got it.” He raised the keys, making them jangle as he approached Steve, Bucky and Natasha, leaning against the car in the darkened and otherwise deserted parking lot.

“They didn’t recognize you?” Steve asked.

“For all she knew I was Denzel Washington. Stop worrying.” Sam opened the trunk to lift out their bags. “She only had three rooms, though, so two of us’ll have to share.”

Natasha slipped past him to grab her own bag, then darted off. “You boys can fight it out among yourselves,” she said, already heading back towards the hotel.

“Don’t you need a key?” Sam yelled out after her, and without looking back Natasha waved one graceful hand into the air. One hand which held a key. Sam fished for the keys he’d put in his pocket — two of them left. “No fair, Nat!” But she’d already disappeared into the building.

“So,” Steve said. He’d driven all day today and yesterday, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes, startlingly unexpected against his smooth pale skin. Sam had never seen him look truly tired before. Even when they’d been after Bucky, when they’d both been running on a few hours of sleep, Steve’d had some kind of maniacal focus that Sam had chalked up to the serum and something specifically Bucky-induced. Now Steve looked exhausted, and it seemed wrong, unnatural. 

“We don’t mind sharing. Right, buddy?” Sam nudged Bucky with his arm as Steve looked between them doubtfully. 

“Yeah we do.” Bucky stared at Sam like he’d grown a second head, and not for the first time Sam wished he had some telepathic gift to knock some sense into the guy.

Sam laughed as if Bucky had told a good joke, and clapped him on the shoulder before handing Steve one of the keys. “We’ll be fine.”

Steve still looked bewildered as Sam steered Bucky towards the hotel, and for a moment Sam considered whether he was getting in-between something. Maybe Steve and Bucky had been looking forward to a quiet evening on their own, doing whatever those quiet looks between them implied. But if they wanted that, they were gonna have to speak up, and considering that wasn’t happening Sam was happy to let Steve have a night for himself.

When the receptionist had mentioned there were three rooms, Sam had assumed there were three rooms left. Apparently, though, the hotel only had three rooms in total. He led them into a small and dingy room that smelled like mothballs. One look at the faded orange curtains, where light was streaming through small holes, explained the reason for the smell. The space was dominated by a double bed which looked clean, thankfully.

“You wanna shower?” Sam asked Bucky, who had been silently taking in the room, pushing aside the curtains to look out of the window. Looking for escape routes, Sam realized.

“Nah, go ahead,” he finally said, dropping his bag onto the bed and climbing up after it, stretching out his legs. “You need it more than I do.”

Sam shot him a look that he hoped conveyed something like ‘I refuse to laugh at these unfunny jokes made at my expense’, and Bucky grinned. They’d been trading these barbed jabs since they’d met and Sam had realized Bucky wasn’t the helpless victim Steve sometimes seemed to think he was. He was traumatized, sure, suffering from PTSD and amnesia and other things Sam didn’t feel comfortable diagnosing without a therapy session, and he wasn’t going to play therapist for Captain America’s buddies. But Bucky wasn’t helpless, and underneath all of those issues was a guy with a sense of humor, who could keep up with Sam’s insults and give him as good as he got. None of Sam’s patients had ever gotten better from being bundled up in bubble wrap.

When Sam returned from his shower, Bucky was already curled up in bed, reading the detective paperback he’d picked up on the road. He was frowning at the page.

“Careful it doesn’t catch fire. What did that book do to you?”

Bucky closed the book with a resolute snap and flung it onto the pile of clothes next to the bed. “I don’t remember much of the 60s, but I remember it wasn’t like that.”

“More ‘free love’ and shooting JFK?” Sam asked, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from his bag and slipping them on, sharply aware of Bucky’s eyes on him as he turned his back to the bed to drag the pants over his hips, chucking the towel into the bathroom.

“I missed out on Woodstock.” When Sam turned around again Bucky was examining the remote, punching random buttons. “And I don’t think this TV works.”

“Feel free to go complain. Maybe the receptionist is one of the five percent still willing to help out Captain America and his team of traitors.”

Bucky frowned at that, and shifted slightly to give Sam enough space to slip into the bed as well. “Steve shouldn’t have done that.”

“Too late, man. At least you’re used to the outlaw lifestyle. Me, I like my morning routine with eggs and coffee from Ben’s Beans.” He sighed wistfully. He’d miss that coffee, damn it.

“Princess.”

“Jackass. Also, damn right I’m royalty.”

Bucky snorted and scooted lower so his head was on the pillow.

“Want me to turn off the light?” It’d been an exhausting few weeks, and Sam wasn’t exactly planning to stay up much longer anyway. Any conversations about their futures and pasts could wait until some other time.

“Sure.” Bucky shifted on the narrow bed, his broad back turned to Sam, and Sam had to hit the light switch a few times before the room was cast into darkness.

It was quiet for a while, sleep threatening to overtake Sam, when Bucky turned, dragging half of the blanket with him so that Sam felt cool air drift over his body. Oh no, no way. Sam grabbed the edge of the sheet and pulled it back towards him, and he heard Bucky huff out a breath before the blanket was being yanked away again. Bucky was stronger, but Sam was determined, and their tug war ended with the both of them pulled towards the middle of the rickety mattress, panting and giggling like kids. 

“Asshole.”

“Bastard.”

Sam could feel the laughter shaking Bucky’s frame, a warm and comfortable weight pressed against him. The mattress was lumpy and the sheet was that cheap rough texture you only ever found in crappy motels, but those things fell away at the electric heat of Bucky’s legs tangled with his. The light streaming through the moth-created holes in the curtains was just enough to identify the contours of his face; the sharp angle of his jaw, the exhausted lines around his eyes, the dark silk of his too-long hair. And then, lower, those wide shoulders and broad chest, tapering into a narrow waist, the thin cotton shirt doing nothing to obscure his shape. 

Hanging out with superheroes, you got used to some things. One of them was your friends group suddenly being comprised of hot fitness models. Bucky was no different, and Sam wasn’t blind. Still, being reminded of that when you were in a tiny bed, far too close for comfort…

Sam looked up to see Bucky staring at him, icy blue eyes catching the light, and then a hand was tracing patterns on his arm and those eyes were coming in closer.

“Woah.” Sam moved back, eyes wide, and Bucky snatched back his arm as if burned.

“Sorry,” Bucky muttered.

Sam shook his head at the direction this night had taken. “Hey, hold up. I just wanna make sure— I don’t wanna get between something.” At Bucky’s confused look, he clarified, “You and Steve. The way you guys look at each other…” He raised an eyebrow.

“There’s nothing to get between.”

“Now that’s one mental image I wouldn’t mind—” He grinned when Bucky slapped his arm. 

“Stop it. It’s not like that.”

“Oh c’mon dude. You ain’t fooling no one.”

Bucky was silent for a bit, then said, very carefully, as if he was weighing every word before he released them out into the world, “Our friendship was always one of the most important things in our lives. But that’s what it was: a friendship. Even if I’d wanted more…” He paused, and Sam could see the tension in his locked jaw. “Steve didn’t — doesn’t see me like that.”

Sam scoffed, and Bucky looked at him, sharply. “He doesn’t. That’s just how it is. And it’s been decades, and I’ve moved on too. But if you’re not interested, I won’t waste your time.”

“Didn’t say I wasn’t interested.” 

“Good.” The way Bucky said it, it didn’t seem like it was good. He sounded annoyed, and that just wouldn’t do. Not if Sam was gonna get laid tonight, and he suddenly  _ really  _ wanted to get laid tonight.

“Great, glad we agree on that,” Sam said, and wrapped his arm around Bucky’s waist until he could drag his tense body closer. Their lips met somewhere in the middle, and the strain still left in Bucky’s frame slowly disappeared until he was pliant, tracing his tongue around Sam’s mouth, fervent and with a single-minded focus that reminded Sam he probably hadn’t kissed anyone in a few decades. 

He groaned, low in his throat, when Sam dragged his hand between their bodies, up one powerfully muscled thigh until he came across a hardness.

“You sleep with a knife?” Sam exclaimed as Bucky defiantly extracted the weapon from his sleeping pants and threw it onto the nightstand.

“We’re fugitives.” He tugged Sam closer again, bit at his bottom lip and rolled them until he was lying on top of Sam, their bodies touching in all the right places. “Jesus, you wouldn’t make it a day without me.”

Sam reached up, tugging at the drawstrings on Bucky’s pants. “Good thing you’re not going anywhere, then,” he said, grinning up at Bucky as his mouth opened on a silent moan.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://queennsansa.tumblr.com/).


End file.
